


Glittering Cloud

by Ninkasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninkasa/pseuds/Ninkasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Apocalypse is averted, Cas and Meg strike out on their own hunting expeditions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Meg did realize that if she was going to be the leper of the “demon community” -- as Sam had called it -- then she was going to have to learn to exist within the confines of human society.

More importantly, she realized about a day after they’d averted the apocalypse that she was also going to be one of the most hunted demons within said demon community. And there was very little she could do about it. Hell, Crowley was having a hard enough time covering his own ass.

So, she’d sort of floundered about a bit. Kept herself within the confines of Bobby’s house -- but far away from the panic room -- and she managed to remember not to drink the beer Dean kept offering her.

It had been something of a shock about a month after they’d arrived at Bobby’s -- all of them straggling in one at a time, trying to find somewhere to hide out to recuperate -- she’d been standing on the porch, staring out at the night and -- once again -- struggling with the urge to just up and leave. 

Obvious thing.

Leave this meat suit. Find another. One no one would recognize and hide out until the worst of the backlash wore down.

She just couldn’t quite get herself to leave the place. Which was utterly ridiculous because since Crowley had left two weeks before, no one had really paid her any attention.

Well, she was sure that if she stayed missing for too long then they’d start to worry she was up to something. But for the most part. . .no one talked to her or really paid her any mind.

Except one.

She turned when she heard the screen door slam and Castiel stepped out to stand next to her on the porch.

They stood in silence for a long time and just when she was about to turn to go back inside, he suddenly spoke.

“There’s been a series of children falling sick in Omaha, Nebraska.”

She frowned at him. “And. But. So. Therefore?”

He returned the frown. “A series of. . .odd illnesses.”

“And the boys want to go check it out?”

He stared at her in that unblinking manner that made her uncomfortable and then shook his head. “No. I suggested that we look into it.”

Oh well, how nice that he decided to include her in his plans without informing her.

“No thanks, Clarence,” she said after a moment. “I’d much rather sit around and watch the grass grow.”

“I just thought you might. . .enjoy getting out of the house for awhile.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and then relaxed slightly. “So, what?” She shrugged her shoulders inside her jacket and jammed her fingers into her jeans pockets. “We’re going to go investigate a possible supernatural occurrence?”

A corner of his mouth quirked at this.

“Yes.”

“An angel and a demon,” Meg said. “Don’t you think that’s going to cause a bit of a stir?”

“I had no intention of opening with that piece of information.”

She bit down on her lip for a second and turned back to stare out at the setting sun for a long time. Anything would be better than being stranded here for much longer.

She turned back to look at him. “How are we getting there?”

He frowned at this and she rolled her eyes. “You’re not exactly on you’re ‘A’ game, Clarence. And I don’t have the power of transporting us both.” She hesitated and then smiled. “We’ll need a car.”

She expected him to argue with her. 

Instead he just said, “I’ll see about getting some money and Identification.”

Translation: I’ll ask Dean about getting some money and I.D.s.

He hesitated, looking for a moment as if he were thinking of saying something else.

Meg frowned at him. “If we’re going to be trapped in a car together for an indefinite amount of time, we should avoid each other as much as possible now.”

He nodded and what may have been a smile threatened to peak through. “Of course.”

She waited until she was sure he was back in the house to look over her shoulder. He could have suggested they take one of Bobby’s old junkers. She wondered why he hadn’t.

Of course, Bobby probably would have said no. She wasn’t sure if it would be because it was HER or because he was irrationally overprotective of his piece of crap cars, but either way, he would have turned them down.

Clarence probably already knew that and hell, at least now the choice of car was up to her.

Now she had to figure out where to get a car. Actually, she vaguely remembered passing a classic car show on the way into Sioux Falls.

With a grin, she pointed herself in that direction and took to the sky. 

It was nothing to take the car. No one would miss it. It wasn’t as if the drug dealer who’d stolen it was going to report it stolen from him.

She still found herself looking around suspiciously for a bit until she made it back to the outskirts and pulled into Bobby’s driveway.

Clarence was loitering on Bobby’s porch with Deano standing in the doorway. She had a feeling she’d interrupted something as she climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

“Oh yeah. That’s not suspicious at all,” Dean said, frowning at the car and then giving Clarence what was probably a speaking look. 

Meg returned his frown. “It’s not going to turn up missing. Trust me.”

“You didn’t kill someone for this, did you?” Clarence asked. He looked a cross between alarmed and annoyed.

“No,” Meg answered, choosing to ignore Dean entirely. “Some valet stole it. Well. . .he claimed he was a valet. Look. He’s not gonna report it missing and neither is the person it was taken from.”

The car was hot. She didn’t care and ignored the incredulous looks Dean and Clarence were giving each other and her. A 1969 dark blue Pontiac firebird. 

She was completely convinced Deano’s look was just one of envy. 

And it wasn’t like Clarence had any idea about cars one way or another. He was probably just concerned they were going to get arrested.

After a long moment, Clarence let out a sort of. . .sigh and did that shoulder movement that she’d come to realize was his version of a shrug.

Which Deano apparently took to be acquiescence if not acceptance and mirrored the shrug. 

He then turned and handed something to Clarence, which Meg couldn’t see, but Clarence pocketed it into his trench coat.

Dean then handed him what was obviously a credit card, a bag of what was probably weapons and supplies and a cigar box. 

I.D.s of course.

She wondered, for a wild moment, how the hell they’d gotten them done so quickly.

Oh.

Right.

Because Clarence had no doubt already discussed this whole thing with the Winchesters prior to bringing it up to her.

She didn’t know which bothered her more: the fact that they had apparently discussed her in private or the assumption that she was going to go along with exactly what they wanted her to do.

Meg made a mental note of this and folded her arms as she leaned against the side of the car. 

Dean frowned at her, probably considering saying something and then shook his head and held out another bag towards her.

She took it from him and moved around to unlock the trunk. Clarence moved behind her and hesitated a moment.

“We should put the weapons and identification beneath everything else.”

Of course. In case they got pulled over. 

Meg grabbed the box of I.D.s and the bag of weapons and pushed them as far to the back as she could. She turned then and stepped back as Clarence shoved another duffel bag -- what was in that? -- it wasn’t like he had other clothing. And then grabbed her bag and did the same.

He slammed the trunk shut a lot harder than Meg would have and she had to bite back a grin at the wince Deano gave.

“I believe that’s everything,” Clarence said, frowning at whatever he saw in the expression on her face. She tried to wipe all amusement from her mind.

Meg shrugged her shoulders and took the leather jacket she’d been wearing off, tossing it into the backseat of the car as she climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Clarence hesitated a moment and then made that little sound that for him passed as a sigh.

Dean frowned for a moment, then shook his head. “Call if you guys get into any kind of trouble. Sam and I are headed up to Chicago. There’s some school that looks like it’s being haunted by a dead lunch lady.”

Castiel said something Meg couldn’t catch. Dean frowned again. “No. Not exactly. . .it’s alright.”

Castiel nodded again and then came around and climbed into the passenger side.

Meg wondered briefly where Sam was, but didn’t say anything about it.

Instead she said, “Are we ready?”

Something about this seemed to amuse him, but he nodded anyway. “Yes.”

“Good.” She rolled the window down and leaned out to look at Dean. “Back up or I’ll run over your feet.”

Dean sort of scowled, but jumped back onto the grass when she started backing out.

They drove along in silence for a few minutes before Meg decided she couldn’t take the silence all the way to Nebraska and reached out to turn the radio on.

Rush’s Tom Sawyer came blaring through the speakers. Sweet action.

Meg looked over once to see Clarence had closed his eyes in what she took to be pain.

“Hey, listen. I’m driving. That means --”

“Driver picks the music,” he cut her off. “Shotgun shuts his -- cake hole.”

“Damn right -- why are you laughing?”

Besides this peculiar exchange, they drove on for the most part in silence. It wasn’t until they were halfway across Iowa that she realized that what she thought was the radio having an echo effect was actually him humming along under his breath.

He was apparently particularly fond of Queen. Meg grinned. That probably drove Deano insane. 

The silence became a bit stifling after awhile. Wherein Meg discovered something she didn’t know about herself. Apparently when faced with intense silence like this, she developed the intense desire to talk. Sometimes about things Clarence probably didn’t care two whips about.

He didn’t interrupt her for the most part. Actually, she thought maybe he’d worked out how to sleep with his eyes open or was doing some kind of Zen Buddha thing or something. He didn’t even interrupt when she started telling the plotline of Lord of the Rings in it’s entirety.

Oh, for the love of Hell.

She had word vomit.

She got to Pelenor Fields when she finally clamped her mouth firmly shut, biting down on her tongue for good measure.

There was silence for a moment as Zeppelin’s “D’yer Maker” played over the radio and then Clarence gave her a confused look.

“What happened to the ring?”

Oh. Apparently he had been listening. “I know you’re only humoring me,” she said. But after a moment where he stared at her in the unblinking way he had, she sighed and continued the story. By the time they’d stopped for gas, he’d started telling her a story. 

It wasn’t until the guy rescued the girl from getting hit by a car that she realized he was telling her Twilight. 

Deano must have made good on his promise to “introduce Cas to popular culture”.

They spent the rest of the trip telling each other stories based on movies or books or television shows they knew. 

She was rather surprised to realize halfway through his story that not only had he apparently seen or read Twilight, but also Hitchhiker’s Guide.

She filed this bit of information away and changed her mind last minute about telling him the shortened version of Good Omens.

They’d lived it, after all.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What’s the address of this hospital again?”

Castiel frowned at her for a moment, probably wondering what movie this was the beginning to and then shook his head. “7500 Mercy Road.”

Wow.

Really?

Meg frowned as they passed a strip mall, slowed down and turned abruptly into the parking lot of a Dillard’s.

“This isn’t the hospital,” he said.

Meg rolled her eyes. “I can see that, Clarence.” She turned off the car and turned to look at him. “But it occurred to me that while you’re perfectly attired to pass as an FBI agent and or CDC agent, I am not.” She paused. “It won’t take long.”

He looked skeptical but got out of the car and tagged along after her, anyway.

He didn’t hide impatience well, and she was somewhat impressed (she’d never admit it) that he dealt with following her around the department store for half an hour while she bought a business suit and a couple change of clothes. 

She was particularly fond of a black t-shirt she found. It had white lettering and read “you’ll be fun to annoy” across the chest.

He was a little less accommodating when she pointed out that he needed casual clothes as well. In the end she had to hassle, bargain and threaten to start yelling “rape” if he didn’t at least find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Overall they only lost about an hour.

“Which is an hour those children in the hospital no longer have. An hour we could have spent trying to save them.”

Meg blinked at him, shading her eyes so she could see him past the sunlight in her eyes.

“They’re in comas, Clarence. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”

She didn’t even pretend to be surprised when he turned on his heel and stalked back to the car.

At least she had the suit. Because from the time they set foot in the hospital building pretending to be CDC members, EVERYTHING went wrong.

For starters, Dean’s twisted sense of humor resulted in them being introduced as Agents Sumner and May. Which would have been fine, had not the attending who was working the pediatric ward not been a big fan of eighties music. The woman simply frowned at the I.D. when Clarence showed it to her and said, “Isn’t that Sting’s real name?”

It also didn’t help that the lady detective that got assigned to help them “in any way I can” was more curious about the nature of her and Clarence’s relationship than she was in finding out what was making those kids sick. If she asked one more leading question while they sifted through medical records, she was going to shoot the woman herself, just to get her to shut up.

Not that the woman could have been much help anyway.

It looked like a shtriga. They thought it was a shtriga. All signs pointed to it being shtriga.

And maybe next time when Clarence said “we shouldn’t split up.” she would listen. Instead of trotting off into the X-Ray room with nothing but iron bullets in her gun to protect her.

Because while iron bullets worked on shtrigas, they didn’t so much work on Spring-Heeled Jacks who popped up on you out of nowhere.

The thing had her pinned to the wall, one hand around her throat and the other using his claws to grip her shoulder about to -- she was pretty sure -- do that vomiting fire thing it was infamous for when the door slammed open and Clarence stopped short.

He kind of raised an eyebrow at her before moving forward, jabbing a knife -- no THE KNIFE -- the knife the boys had always had -- firmly up under the thing’s ribs.

The thing writhed and shrieked for a moment before it’s eyes lit up in that oh-so-familiar manner and the body went lifeless.

Right. Demonic being. 

“What was that?” Clarence asked, reaching out to help her away from the wall.

“I believe that was what the English call ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’.” He even had the suit. Really. How the HELL had they missed that the freakin’ head of pediatrics had huge-ass claws instead of normal hands? 

It occurred to her that they needed to spend less time arguing with each other and more time paying attention to what was going on around them.

“I thought those were only in England,” he said as he helped her out of the room. Her leg hurt something fierce. “How did it get here?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe it migrated during the potato famine.” She shook her head when he opened his mouth. “I didn’t ask for it’s Green Card, Clarence. It was trying to kill me.”

She limped away from him, letting him trail behind her slightly. “I need a drink.”

By the time they left town, she was feeling infinitely better about things, although that could have been the amount of liquor she had consumed and her meat suit’s apparently lack of ability to handle it.

The only difficulty with a vague state of inebriation she decided -- after they were on the road headed to she didn’t know where yet -- was that she tended to turn things over and over in her mind and at this point in time after the two days they‘d had, this was generally a troubling situation. 

She learned several things from this case.

The first was that they really needed to work on their communication skills.

The next was that they really needed to train up on not only the physical aspect of hunting but also on the lore of the damned things they were hunting. Because in hindsight, it should have been obvious it wasn’t a shtriga at all.

The third thing she learned was that almost dieing was apparently an aphrodisiac.

Okay, she didn’t actually realize that while driving. 

About two hours outside of town on a deserted stretch of highway she pulled off onto a dirt road, parked the car and turned to look at him.

She fully intended to tell him she was “out. Done. I quit. You’re on your own” and any other phrase that came to mind which essentially said, “Yeah. No. Not doing this anymore.”

Except apparently, sometime in the two hours she’d been driving along to Foreigner, he’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat.

Which. . .really wasn’t normal.

Oh, balls. Meg really hoped he was just sleeping.

She unfastened her seatbelt and moved across the console housing the gearshift to reach out and touch where his -- Jimmy’s? -- pulse should be.

It was faint, but it was there. 

She tapped his arm once and when he didn’t react, she slid completely across the gearshift -- wincing slightly -- and rested her knees on either side of his legs on the passenger seat.

Meg settled herself more comfortably in his lap. She tipped her head to the side and looked for a long moment.

He was still breathing. That was something. 

She hesitated for a moment, before reaching up with one finger and tracing it lightly across his bottom lip.

It really was a very pretty. . .err. . .the word he used was “vessel”. She thought “meat suit” fit just fine. It really was now anyway. He’d never said, but she was pretty sure he was the only one in there anymore.

She tilted her head to the side some more and then slowly leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. Just once. And quickly. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft -- which considering how much time he spent worrying at them with his tongue shouldn’t really be surprising -- OH.

He blinked up at her, somewhat slowly, cocking his head to the side as he did so.

Meg suddenly had a wild moment where she couldn’t remember what he’d done with that knife.

She wished she knew exactly what went through his mind at that moment. Well. . .at the time, she hadn’t. But later, she wished she knew whether it was him or some remnant of that poor bastard whose meat he’d been riding. 

Even though later it. . .wouldn’t matter so much.

Or even at all.

At that moment, while they sat and stared at each other for a moment that seemed to stretch out for longer than was probably necessary, she realized there something different in the way he looked at her. Something that. . .honestly had been there for a while -- now that she really thought about it. 

Meg laughed suddenly, long and loud and then tipped her head back down, covering his mouth with hers before he could wake up more or before she changed her mind and vaulted completely out of the car.

He hesitated for a moment -- only a moment -- then relaxed slightly, fingers coming up to twist in her hair, opening his mouth when her tongue toyed with his bottom lip.

There was a moment of exhiliration as she realized exactly what was about to happen. She laughed again and the sound was swallowed up against his mouth as his hands traveled down her sides to slide under her shirt and running up along her skin. 

She pulled back out of the kiss, reaching up to tug on his tie, pulling him forward to kiss him roughly, lingering her lips against his for a moment. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” she murmured softly, sliding her fingers down between them, grinning at the way his hips jerked in response to her hand sliding across his growing erection. “Clearly your body does.”

He kissed her again, before pulling back slightly to grasp the bottom of her t-shirt. “I’ve been on earth for two years,” he said, slowly. “Most of which have been spent in Dean’s company.”

Right.

She pulled back to let him pull the t-shirt up over her head, ducking slightly to keep from hitting her head on the ceiling as he did so.

“And you have no problems with --”

His hands stopped running down her back. “If you keep talking about it, I will.”

She leaned back down to kiss him, roughly and slid her hand up to undo the belt buckle she was sitting against.

“Fair enough.”

Someone had clearly taught him something and what he lacked in experience, he made up with in enthusiasm. And a willingness to let her lead she wasn’t sure she was one hundred percent comfortable with.

Meg had the vague thought as she laid down against him, sliding her legs down beneath his that she should really be leaving now. Hadn’t that been the plan when she pulled over?

She lifted her head to kiss his throat and closed her eyes a moment when his fingers ran through her hair. 

Right. Get up. Get dressed. Either kick him out of the car or for hell’s sake, leave yourself.

She laid her head back down as he shifted slightly, and she realized in a moment that he was pulling his trench coat over both of them.

Fine.

She’d go in the morning.

The only difficulty with this plan was that he woke up first and apparently knew how to drive, something that bothered Meg because she hadn’t known that. And it made her wonder what the fuck else she didn’t know about him. And she wondered who -- she had her suspicions on this as well -- had taken the time to teach him. 

The upshot was, she couldn’t get out of the car and then they pulled into a town where they had a restaurant that made pancakes that Meg would cheerfully have gone back to Hell for and she never quite got around to mentioning that maybe she should move on. 

Or that he should get the fuck out.

Either way time started passing quickly for awhile. Hell’s bitches were in rare form and apparently throwing a party since Daddy was locked back up in the Pit and seemed to think this meant they could do whatever the fuck they wanted.

After four or five cases, and one that turned out to be particularly nasty, Meg reached a conclusion that they needed to start taking turns deciding what they hunted. What cases they took.

Clearly, after two months of going where Clarence wanted and ganking what he wanted, it was her turn to choose where they went.

And it was going to be in some nice bright city like Los Angeles or Chicago. Some place with pavement and street lights.

Not Backwoods, USA, where not even the main street was paved.

Oh. And no cell reception. Which had really been a nice touch when it had turned out that what they’d thought was some random witch had actually turned out to be some bad-ass boss demon with a grudge since the end of the Apocalypse-That-Never-Was.

And it had seemed to suit said demon just fine to realize that what he had was not in fact two out-of-their-league bickering newlyweds, but two of the members of Team No Apocalypse.

Okay, so the bickering bit had been true. Well, she tried to bicker. . .Mostly Clarence just sighed and tried to ignore that part, carrying on the conversation as if everything she said wasn’t trying to goad him into some reaction. Except as the day had worn on, the heat, the lack of leads and the general suckiness of the situation had led to him being less stoic, more annoyed and by the time they’d finally found the demon’s lair, he’d been downright pissy.

They’d been full-on arguing when they’d been taken by surprise. His spidey-senses weren’t what they used to be since they’d prevented the Apocalypse and apparently his abilities were dwindling much more than he’d let on prior to tonight because he couldn’t even zap them out of the room when the damned demon had gotten the upper hand on them, despite her demands that he do just that.

Three months had passed since Georgia and she was still. . .she was still here. In so far as here meant “with him” and not “somewhere else”. She meant to leave. She kept thinking she would, but something would happen. She’d see something that could be a case. Or there was a concert she wanted to see or one of them would get hurt and she’d find a reason to stay.

And he didn’t give any indication that he wanted to be rid of her. He made no kind of statement or implication that he thought they should go separate ways and really it was nice knowing that there was someone to watch your back.

The sex was also a plus. She was rather startled and thrilled to realize that he wasn’t nearly as -- inhibited as she’d expected. Then again -- as he’d said that first time -- he had spent two years in the company of the Winchesters and another six months with her. 

Actually there were times she wasn’t sure she could keep up. And between the two of them -- the places they’d fucked were becoming impressive and she wondered if there wasn’t some website where you could document said accomplishments for posterity.

She worried sometimes they might get arrested. 

Meg tossed her -- now ruined -- leather coat onto the nearby motel chair and quickly slipped into the bathroom before Clarence noticed that she was beating him to the shower.

Really, the explosion had been impressive. She didn’t really know what it was he’d done, but she would have appreciated a heads-up before she’d worn the new pair of jeans.

Which were now covered in demon bits, sludge and some brown stuff that she didn’t want to examine too closely.

She closed the door tightly behind her, ignoring the muffled question that came from the other side as he apparently realized she wasn’t in the room with him any longer.

Meg leaned heavily against the door for a second, then moved to turn on the shower, reveling in the knowledge that with her healing abilities, she’d be more than able to withstand the heat and pressure of whatever this pathetic little motel had to offer.

She really needed to break him away from the Winchester school of “we have to slum it all the time” thought. 

Fake ID’s not withstanding, there were ways and WAYS to get money to stay somewhere nicer. Somewhere with a bigger bed, cleaner sheets, more on the television than porn and maybe a bigger shower.

Okay, so this one wasn’t so bad, she thought as she dumped her jeans and t-shirt onto the floor and moved to remove the bra and panties and tossed them as well. 

Honestly, she didn’t know how the mud had gotten INTO her underwear. Oh, she HOPED it was mud.

Clarence had apparently given up on whatever it was he’d been trying to tell her through the door and she grinned slightly before slipping into the shower under the stream of hot water. Pulling the sliding glass over as she did so.

Meg rinsed her hair twice before reaching around the shower stall door to grab onto the bag of shampoo and soap that she’d left on the edge of the sink and pulled the door shut again.

She honestly didn’t know what it was that kept him from killing her sometimes. She suspected that sometimes he wanted to and she was never quite sure what it was that stopped him doing it.

While yes, she said that she didn’t really have anyone to go to, this wasn’t entirely true. And anyway, there must have somewhere she could go and something she could do.

She figured he wouldn’t let her get far anyway, so she’d never really tried. He couldn’t very well let her out of his sight when she knew so much about him and his precious Winchesters.

Honestly, she’d sort of made the decision a long time ago that she wasn’t going anywhere. Whether she had anywhere to go or not.

It did cross her mind once briefly as she was using what was left of her body wash to rid the back of her legs of what she really hoped was mud -- really, how had it gotten past her clothes? -- that he might want to take a shower as well.

She shrugged it off just as quickly. 

He should have moved faster.

She turned her face into the water and bit back a sigh. Partially from exhaustion -- something she couldn’t get used to -- and partially from a general frustration.

He could say what he wanted about the idea that there would have been no reason to fight to save the world if they then let the demons, ghouls and other foul things prey on the world they’d fought to save.

It wasn’t what she’d fought for.

She realized this was really a moot point by now. She’d been tagging along for enough time now that any argument she might make about not wanting to work to save the world or the people who inhabit it would basically be treated as her just trying to be difficult.

Honestly sometimes she was and at least he had the decency not to expect her to commit genocide. 

He’d commented once that he’d been forced to kill other angels during the Apocalypse That Never Was. He wasn’t going to expect her to gank demons.

Okay. So, he hadn’t worded it quite like that. But the sentiment had been there. And she appreciated it.

Not that she’d ever tell him that. Sometimes she thought maybe she should. But then, they’d been in each other’s company for over a year now almost non-stop and there was really no reason to change their routine this late in the game.

She did understand now why sometimes the Winchesters just jumped on each other. 

It was difficult being in someone’s constant company all the time. Whether by choice or not. She didn’t like that about him. He didn’t like this about her. There were times when they really couldn’t stand each other.

But they did for the most part get along fairly well. More importantly, they knew each other well enough now to be able to predict, understand or at the very least avoid each other’s bad moods. 

More importantly, they’d learned that they fought well together when they weren’t busy fighting each other.

She vaguely heard him say something again outside the door and she stuck her head out of the shower and shouted.

“Clarence! For the love of Hell, you’ve already seen everything there is to see. Just come in here where I AM!”

Silence for a moment and she turned her face back into the shower spray and then jumped when there was a breeze and suddenly hands touched her shoulder.

“Shit!” She stepped back and turned to look at him. He was standing behind her, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and barefoot. He was getting soaked.

“I meant through the door, asshole,” she said, without the venom she’d meant to have. “I thought you couldn’t apparate anymore.”

He frowned at this, reaching up to pull a piece of -- demon -- out of her hair. “I didn’t have the strength to transport both of us.”

Oh. Oh. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she turned her back to him for a second under the guise of rinsing the rest of whatever was in her hair out. She turned back after a moment when she realized he was still standing there watching her with that unnerving stare of his.

“Is it some secret? What you want?”

He frowned at this. “You told me to come in here.”

Right. “What were you saying at the door?”

“I was checking to see if you wanted something to eat.” He paused. “Apparently, there’s a hamburger restaurant down the street.”

Oh. Yes. Actually, now that he brought it up, her stomach was growling something fierce. “Yes,” she said, with the force she’d meant to have when she’d scolded him. 

A corner of his mouth quirked, probably at the desperation in her voice suddenly. “Fries,” he said. “With chili.”

“And cheese,” she said as he moved to step out of the shower. “And bacon if they have it!” she called as the door shut behind him.

She turned back around to shut off the shower.

That hadn’t lead where she’d thought it had been going at all.

Which made her wonder exactly what he thought was going on.

It made her wonder what she thought was going on as well, but she pushed that to the back of her mind and went out to grab her clothes, turning different cities over and over in her head.

There must be some city somewhere that was having issues with the occult. Preferably someplace warm and with booze.

Meg grinned. Of course. If there was anywhere in this damned country that had difficulty with things of an occultish nature it would be the Big Easy, or whatever the fuck they called the Venice of America.

Hoodoo, haunting and it was only a week’s drive away. Perfect.

The door opened and Clarence came back in, Meg paused in the middle of pulling her jeans up.

He raised an eyebrow at her as she stumbled and fell slightly forward.

Graceful.

“What would you have done if I had been the cleaning crew?” he asked as he sat a bag of greasy diner foot down.

Meg shrugged a shoulder. “Depends on how attractive said cleaning crew was,” she said, pulling her jeans up and putting on a clean bra and t-shirt. She came over to stand next to him. 

“That was impossibly fast,” she said, as he handed her something in a Styrofoam box.

He frowned at her. “I’ve been gone for half-an-hour.”

Meg glanced at the clock.

Oh. Clearly she’d been daydreaming in the shower for longer than she thought.

Meg flopped down on what was quickly becoming “her” side of the bed. That was unsettling. She shouldn’t have a side. Maybe she should make him sleep in the car.

She opened the box and took the plastic fork he handed her. “So, I was thinking,” she said, stabbing a fry with said fork as he sat down in the chair next to the bed with what looked like a chicken sandwich of some sort.

He stopped with the sandwich midway to his mouth and looked at her. “Oh, dear.”

She ignored that. 

“I was thinking we need to head south for awhile,” Meg said. “Someplace warmer. I’m sure New Orleans has something evil that needs cleaning up. Or Miami.”

Miami would be awesome. Why hadn’t she mentioned that first?

For that matter, why the fuck was she asking for his opinion.

She shoved several fries in her mouth and distracted herself by focusing on chewing.

“New Orleans,” he said slowly as if this were something he thought he should know.

Meg nodded, “You know, hoodoo, witches, vampires. . .ghosts.” Meg grinned.

“If there was ever going to be a city that was plagued by the supernatural it’d be there.”

He frowned at her. “You’ve been reading those Mayfair books again, haven’t you?”

Well. . .yes. “That doesn’t make it any less true.”

He eyed her for a long moment. “Okay.”

“Really, Clarence, it’s--” Meg stopped. “Okay?”

Castiel did his sort-of shrug. “Yes. It’s fine. Dean’s constantly raving about the. . .atmosphere of the city.”

Booze, Violence and Whores.

Of course. . .Dean probably treated it as his own personal Mecca.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meg and Cas set off for New Orleans where they wind up in more trouble than they expected.

Meg grinned and grabbed a newspaper off the side table. “Good,” she said. “Because I was reading in this paper about what might be a case.”

Okay, that was a lie. She’d not been thinking of it as a case, but she did now remember reading about it.

It seemed a simple case -- what looked like a Coven in the Garden District of New Orleans. The business partners of a jazz club owner kept turning up dead in peculiar ways. Well, peculiar in that both had died in car accidents within a month of each other.

Okay, maybe not a Coven. Maybe just one lone witch, but still. . .it was a case. And it was her choice and it was NEW ORLEANS.

It seemed simple -- open and shut. Clearly someone who wanted the bar was responsible.

Simple.

So, naturally, everything went wrong.

Clarence could give her that look all he wanted, it wasn‘t her fault and even if it was, he’d agreed to coming here.

She thought he was just mad that she figured it out before he did.

Honestly, it was another of those situations where if they’d been paying attention, they should have noticed.

They’d been having no luck with regards to a suspect. They’d managed to obtain a room in the loft above said jazz club because the woman who ran the place thought they were apparently in some kind of trouble and liked pity cases.

Or something.

All Meg knew was that the woman -- Reggie -- kept looking at her with a sort of pitying look in her eyes and then would turn and glare at Castiel in a way that made Meg want to laugh when he turned to look at her with a sort of confused expression.

It also probably didn’t help that they’d introduced themselves as Sid and Nancy Summer.

Really.

She was SO going to punch Deano in the face the next time she saw him.

Reggie had looked at them in a way that said she knew full well that these weren’t their real names, and as they’d been about to leave after talking to her about possibly getting a job in the bar, had blurted out, “I have a small apartment upstairs no one is using.”

It was a good way to get close to the people who were working the bar.

So, they took on whatever little jobs Reggie had for them and tried to keep an eye on the people coming and going from the club.

And for three weeks they had no leads and there were only two people left in the running to go halves with Reggie. The other two had both died in car accidents before they arrived and one more the day after they’d set up in the apartment. All three in bizarre car accidents.

The situations were just different enough that it didn’t seem obviously connected. One had fallen asleep at the wheel and driven off the road. Another committed suicide by leaving the engine running. And the third -- well, a hit and run driver wasn’t too much of a stretch. And no one seemed particularly shocked by it.

The first man had been driving home from a business trip all night. The second’s wife had just left him and this bar was his last chance. And the third. . .well, drunk driving happened all the time. The sign had said “don’t walk”.

 

And there seemed to be no way that the upright business men who were sniffing around could possibly even know anything about hoodoo, much less how to perform it.

Clarence pointed out one evening, that it was New Orleans and EVERYONE knew something about voodoo and witchcraft. It was in their history and their blood.

Well, yes.

Meg frowned at him over the top of the computer where she was trying to hack her way into the bar’s personnel files.

“This would be much easier if Reg just saved her files in old shoeboxes like a normal dive owner,” she said.

Clarence’s phone chimed with a text message -- Zeppelin’s Misty Mountain Hop declaring it was from Deano. It was like the sixth one in the last twenty minutes.

He glanced at her, opened his mouth to respond and then turned his attention to the phone instead.

Meg rolled her eyes and then pulled her cell back to her ears. “Okay, Sam. I’m into her system, now what do I do?”

“Look for something that shows where she’d save the personnel files. And hope she’s not intelligent enough to encrypt them,” came Sam’s response. He and Dean were holed up somewhere in Arizona, apparently tracking a werewolf that was prowling a small town.

Which, if Sam was on the phone with her, then it would explain why Dean was bored and texting Clarence every thirty seconds.

Bar info. Ha! Meg clicked on the file and grinned as tax papers, receipts, applications from all employees and potential employees and -- yes. Background checks -- popped up.

“Jackpot. Thanks, Sammy.”

There was a sort of stunned silence on the other end for a moment, then, “You’re welcome.” He sounded like he was going to hang up, then, “Meg, you guys watch it. They’re humans. They’re not going to be held to any set of rules the way the stuff you’ve hunted before have.”

“Sam, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were worried.”

Silence again. “Not for you, so much,” came the response. “But Dean’s -- well, anyway. Just be careful. Neither of you have the same powers you used to.”

Right.

“Understood.”

Meg hung up before he could say anything else.

She looked up. “I found the background checks.”

Clarence’s phone chimed again. A generic chime that said the text was from no one he normally received one from.

Meaning it wasn’t from her or Dean.

Meg pulled herself up to look at him more closely over the computer. “Who’s that from?”

Not that she cared. Really. . .Just. . .oh, balls. She slumped back down in her chair and hunched over the keyboard some more.

He put his phone in his jeans pocket and came around to look at the computer screen. “Paige.”

Meg rolled her eyes. The singer for the house band. Who for some reason had attached herself to Clarence -- Sid -- like some kind of leech. And Reggie kept giving Meg pitying looks whenever the girl popped up.

They needed to come up with a new cover story.

“Why did you give her your number?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he knelt down to look at the screen. “I thought she might be able to tell us something.”

“And did she?”

He licked his lips slowly -- probably deliberately -- and continued to look at the screen. “Not really. At least, nothing we can use.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why he was still talking to her, but she realized this was starting to sound like the beginnings of a dialogue they shouldn’t be having at all and she turned her attention back to the screen.

She clicked through the different background checks and financial records in silence for about five minutes, nothing was throwing up any red flags. Meg frowned and clicked on the name a little further down.

Her eyebrows went up and she turned to look at him. “Let’s see what your girlfriend’s past looks like, shall we?”

Okay. That was bitchy and a bit pathetic.

Clarence frowned down at her, and opened his mouth. Probably to ask who she was talking about and then looked down at the screen.

“Oh.” He paused. “The drummer -- what’s his name? Nathan? -- she told him she was Lebanese.”

Meg blinked up at him and then looked back at the file in front of her. “Her police record says she’s from Metaire originally.” Not a lot of bad stuff. Some breaking and entering and drug possession about ten years ago. She’d apparently cleaned up her act quite a bit since she’d come to New Orleans.

Ironic, really.

“Why would she be lying about where she was from?” Meg asked.

Maybe she’d just gotten better at hiding her illegal activities.

Castiel was giving her that scrunched up, confused “why are you making everything so difficult?” look. She actually really liked that look. “He asked her out on a date and she told him she only dated women.”

Oh.

Lesbian.

“Yeah. I think she probably lied about that too, Clarence.”

“Why would she do that?” he asked, reaching out to scroll the screen down a bit further.

Meg rolled her shoulder and wondered if it would be considered antagonistic to demand that he sit down somewhere that wasn’t almost in her lap.

She’d seen the guy he was talking about. If he asked her out, she might suddenly be a lesbian too.

Meg stared at him for a moment. Honestly, the woman had done everything short of stick her tongue down his throat to try to get Castiel to notice her interest. However, Castiel being Castiel had just put it down to one of those things humans do and ignored it.

To be fair, she had practically -- okay, literally -- shoved her tongue down his throat before he picked up on her interest. And -- she wasn’t sure -- but she thought he’d never picked up on Deano’s interest.

So really, it wasn’t that big of a stretch that he ignored the little red-headed girl’s attention.

“What makes you think she’s lying about it?” he continued, apparently oblivious to her inner monologue.

Meg stared at him in complete disbelief. A year ago, she would have told him precisely WHY she thought the girl was lying.

Now she found the response stuck in her throat like treacle or that “caramel” they put on those apples at carnivals and she opened and closed her mouth several times. She shook her head and shoulders in a manner that made her think of a dog trying to clear water from it’s fur. “I’ve seen her flirting with guys,” she said after a long moment.

Oh, hell. He was going to ask who in a second, she could feel it.

Zeppelin suddenly chimed from his phone again and Clarence looked down at the phone. Meg suddenly felt she could kiss Dean for his codependency. She surreptitiously moved Paige’s file to the desktop file she’d labeled as “watch” and closed the laptop.

Meg stood up and stretched and Clarence looked up at her from the phone. She tugged the t-shirt she was wearing over her head and tossed it onto the bed, heading towards the bathroom. She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing out loud. She could feel his eyes following her as she leaned over to turn on the water in the shower.

She turned back around to look at him. “Are you joining me? Or are you going to play with your. . .phone?”

He tossed his phone onto the bed without a word and followed her into the bathroom.

One of the perks of him being in a male meat suit.

It was ridiculously easy to distract him with sex now that he knew he. . .liked sex.

Not that she exploited that or anything.

Much.

Okay, she did. But that was neither here nor there, then again, she only used it as a last resort.

Usually when his attention had been diverted from her for more than she was comfortable with.

Or comfortable with admitting out loud that she wasn’t comfortable with.

Which was probably why she was just so grumpy and annoyed whenever that little singer girl came around.

Which was probably why she missed it until it was almost too late.

Not that she’d really missed it, but she was definitely going to have to start learning how to tell the difference between her I-don’t-like-you-because-you’re-standing-to-close-to-him sense and her I-don’t-like-you-because-you’re-actually-doing-something-wrong vibe

She was going to start keeping a list of all the times she was right and he didn’t listen to her.

And then she was going to actually start informing him of when she thought she was right so he would realize he didn’t listen to her.

Because she hadn’t really tried to tell him that his little red-headed girl was the culprit outside of vague innuendo and joking. Which he ignored because she talked to him like that all the time.

Because she really hadn’t been sure if it was just something about the girl she didn’t like. If it was her instincts kicking in with regards to the supernatural and if they were she wasn’t sure she could trust them. A year ago, she would have gone on that instinct alone. A year ago, she wouldn’t have cared if the girl was innocent or not.

Then he’d put the notion into her head that her Father hated all his children and then Crowley had gotten not only himself but her involved with the goddamned Winchester brothers.

Now she found herself more wary of making that very mistake. Of punishing an innocent because she’d made a mistake. She was starting to understand his argument of “we fought to save them. We need to keep fighting for them now”. Loathe though she was to admit it. She didn’t want to jump the gun and accuse the girl of being the culprit and have it actually turn out she was just. . .annoyed by her.

This was most of the reason she didn’t make any move or say anything about Paige. If it turned out she was wrong. . .they didn’t have any proof. She’d heard someone say that the girl was hurt that Reggie didn’t think of her as a potential business partner. Apparently, Paige had put more money into the business than anyone but Reggie herself.

Honestly, she’d been shrugging off the not-quite-right feeling she’d had because of the girl’s. . .clinging to Castiel. Meg’d thought her dislike of the girl came from. . .well, not jealousy, per se, but a possessiveness.

Then they’d come down the stairs that lead into the bar one evening. Meg leading the way down the narrow wooden staircase with Clarence a few steps behind.

She moved to open the door and then stopped when she heard Reggie’s voice talking to someone.

“What did you think they were?”

Meg couldn’t hear Paige’s response because Clarence came down to stand right behind her and ended up nudging her in the side as he did so.

“Why are we waiting?”

“Shh,” Meg turned to look at him and discovered he was standing right next to her. He’d been wearing his typical suit and coat all day and when she’d changed into jeans and a t-shirt, he’d left the suit on. She forgot sometimes how much taller than her he actually was. Whether it was from her constantly being around him or the fact that he seemed so much. . .meeker when not dressed in the “holy tax accountant” get-up, she’d gotten used to barely coming up to his shoulder. And honestly, she was usually in boots tall enough that it didn’t matter. But she was wearing flat tennis shoes this evening and when he came to stand on the step next to her, she was momentarily disoriented by the fact that she barely came up to his shoulder. It took her a moment to regain her composure.

Meg turned her attention back to the door.

“No. They’re not related,” Reggie was saying.

“But they have the same last name.”

“They also introduced themselves as Sid and Nancy. They’re not siblings,” this was Nathan talking.

Oh. Shit.

“If they are, they’ve got some serious flowers up in the attic.”

They’d never claimed to be siblings, though. Honestly, Meg had sort of. . .assumed the assumption would be that they were married.

“I don’t understand what --”

Meg jumped and elbowed him in the stomach. “It’s a book, Clarence. Now shush.”

She could hear Paige protesting, but couldn’t hear what was being said. Then she heard Reggie -- who was apparently closer to the stairwell than Paige was -- say, “Honey. That apartment only has one bed. What did you think was going on?”

Again, she couldn’t hear the response and Reggie seemed to raise her voice in a way that made Meg think she knew they could hear the conversation. Maybe you could from upstairs, she’d never known how much of their eavesdropping came from their own abilities and how much of it was the crappy insulation of the building.

“Don’t mistake politeness for interest,” came Reggie’s response. “And I would back off. He seems nice enough, but his little girlfriend makes me nervous. I wouldn’t trust her any further than I could throw her.”

“Well, you’re no prize yourself,” Meg muttered and winced when Clarence elbowed her in the side.

She turned to look at Clarence then. “She is SO going to boil your rabbit.”

Castiel frowned at this and opened his mouth, she suspected to tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about. Meg reached out and pushed open the door.

The conversation stopped -- naturally -- when the door swung open.

Paige had apparently left the room a moment before.

Oh yeah, this was going to go badly.

Meg frowned at Reggie, who shrugged her shoulders in response. “She’s old enough to know better by now,” came the response. “She’ll get over it.”

Meg reached back and took hold of Clarence’s hand, tugging him forward without a word. They’d been going to get something to eat and there was no reason in changing those plans now.

He seemed about to say something, but Meg stepped back slowly to step on his foot for a moment and then moved her foot.

He nodded slowly and let her tug him out of the bar into the parking lot.

She slowed once they were in the parking lot, frowning at the green Honda parked down at the opposite end of where they’d left the Firebird in the alley beneath the window of the apartment. Reggie said it was probably the safest place for it and it would be out of the way of paying customers.

Not that they weren’t paying, but still. . .customers who weren’t around all the time.

Meg stopped Castiel by the side of the car and reached up to tug on his tie, pulling him against her and down into a kiss.

Yes, it had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but it fit her purpose. She wasn’t about to tolerate some uppity, entitled skank think for a moment she stood a chance against her.

Either in manipulation of anything else she wanted to try. She could play the wounded victim, claim to be hurt or like she didn’t know that she was being obnoxious and annoying, but it didn’t change the fact that she’d been treading on ground that wasn’t hers. And it wasn’t as if she and Clarence had been pretending that they weren’t sleeping together. Everyone else in the damned bar had assumed they were married.

Castiel’s hands slid up to rest against her midriff, fingers running up and down slightly to mirror what she realized were the motions of her own hand against his waist.

She tried to ignore that desperate awful possessiveness that was raging through her mind. It made her feel pathetic and a bit sick, but she was fairly adjusted by now to this fucked up little partnership they had going and she didn’t like the idea of watching it collapse because of some tarted up hussy with delusions of the occult.

She had a hard enough time dealing with co-dependent demon hunters.

Castiel moaned suddenly, shifting his hands down to cup her ass and pulling her tighter against him.

One of them moaned and the other laughed and she wasn’t sure which one did which.

Meg pulled away from him and smiled. “Food first, Clarence,” she said, snaking her tongue out to lick her bottom lip.

Blue eyes blinked slowly at her. “What?”

She rolled her eyes, but it was without the malice it would have had a year ago. “Food. Dinner. Red beans and rice. Jambalaya. . .ooooh. Crawfish.”

Meg pulled the keys out of her jacket and disentangled herself from his grasp.

There was a brief moment where he suddenly seemed to have about six more limbs than usual and then he let go of her.

He nodded and opened the passenger side door. “Right.”

Meg grinned and climbed into the driver’s seat.

She ignored the odd pang she felt in her gut as she pulled out of the alley, glancing once at the car still parked in the parking lot.

She continued to ignore the feeling throughout the evening. It was difficult to concentrate on a peculiar sense of wrong when there was food and cake and even harder to focus when someone’s tongue was in your mouth, ear and other places.

It wasn’t until sometime around dawn that the alarm bells started ringing loud enough to merit her attention. She woke up with a sudden start and she knew exactly what it was.

Oh, hell no.

She slid out of bed, slightly hampered by the fact that she was half in and half out of Castiel’s dress shirt.

Meg swore and yanked it back up over her shoulders impatiently and slipped across the cold hardwood floor.

Her first thought was that maybe the hexbag was stashed in the bathroom somewhere. It was were she’d hide it if she were doing it. Her second thought was, “where the Hell is Clarence?”

She knew for a fact he’d been there when she’d fallen asleep, because he’d fallen asleep with his legs over hers. Something that drove her nuts but was proving difficult to break him of.

Meg took the back off the toilet tank. There was no bag in there. She moved methodically through the tiny space, feeling underneath surfaces, pulling out towels and washcloths. She even used a knife to cut open the toothpaste tube. Just in case.

There was nothing there and she moved into the living area, the knife clenched firmly in her hand.

It didn’t occur to her as she tore open the cover off the VCR or ripped apart the cushion on the room’s only chair that they’d better wrap this case up because they were probably going to have to leave in a hurry.

She’d pulled the sheets off the bed and was in the process of cutting into the mattress when the door opened and she heard, “This is what you do when I’m not around?”

Meg growled and continued tearing open the mattress. She jammed her arm into the inside and scrabbled around amongst the stuffing. Her hand closed on nothing and she pulled herself out and turned to look at Castiel, panting slightly from where she was kneeling on the bed, bits of stuffing stuck to her in peculiar places.

“For fuck’s sake, Clarence,” she spat, hauling herself to her feet and frowning slightly at the white box he was holding as he righted an upturned table.

He raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t say anything.

“There’s a hexbag somewhere with my name on it.”

To give him credit, he reacted as appropriately as could be expected. He dropped the box on the table and came over to stand next to the decimated bed. “Are you certain?”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. Your girlfriend must have planted it.”

He opened his mouth -- probably to protest the use of the word “girlfriend”.

“You know what? Fuck it.” Meg grabbed the car keys off the floor. “Come on.”

She was halfway out the door when Castiel said, “Meg?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to hear it, Clarence. I knew something was wrong with her and I ignored it. It’s no coincidence that the thing turned up after that conversation in the bar.”

Something passed briefly over his face that might have been amusement.

“I understand that,” he said. “But I believe there is a law against running into the street with your shirt open and no pants.”

Meg swore and rushed back into the apartment. She shoved on her jeans from last night and haphazardly buttoned enough buttons on the shirt so it wasn’t flying open and rushed back out the door.

She was vaguely aware as she tore through the still deserted bar of him following close behind her. She was also vaguely aware that she nearly brained him with the swinging door.

He managed to catch up with her completely at the car. Meg grinned at him slightly. “Oh. Are you coming along?”

He scowled at her and opened the door. “Please don’t kill us on the way there,” was the only response he gave.

Fair enough.

They drove along in silence for almost a full minute before Clarence spoke. “What makes you so certain Paige is the one behind this?”

She didn’t think gut instinct was what he wanted. Nor did she think rage-inducing jealousy was the appropriate response.

Meg hesitated a moment, then said, “We’ve been here for over a week. And NOW I suddenly get some kind of hoodoo placed on me. The only thing that’s changed is her knowledge of our --” she didn’t want to say “relationship” because -- how much of a girl could she be?

“Relationship,” he said.

“Sleeping arrangement,” she decided. “What?” Meg grinned at him. “Don’t be such a girl, Clarence.”

He might have had some sort of response. She didn’t know because around that time, the steering wheel jerked out of her hands and the gas pedal floored from under her foot.

Castiel frowned at her. “Perhaps you should stay on this side of the road.”

Meg gritted her teeth and tried to grab and hold the steering wheel with no success. “It’s not me, ass--” Oh, hell. “The hexbag is in the car.”

He looked thoroughly alarmed at this and wrenched open the glove box without a word.

“What are you doing?” Meg demanded, trying to push the brake down with no effect.

Road maps, a flashlight and a pack of Red Vines were tossed unceremoniously into her lap. Two spare cell phones followed them.

“Looking for the hexbag,” came the response. He frowned and reached under the seat. “We have got to clean this car out,” he said. He made a face. “I don’t want to know what that is.”

Meg shrieked as the car veered off the road and onto the median. “We are so getting arrested. I don’t want to go to jail. I won’t do well in prison, Clarence. I have a problem keeping my mouth shut.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said calmly. “You’re not going to get arrested.” He pulled a round white case out from under the seat. “The curse will have killed you long before then.”

Oh, Thanks.

He paused a moment. “If you just smoke out of that body, would the curse follow you? Or would it attach to the girl?”

What the Hell? Meg shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this happening before. Typically my folks are the ones doing the curses, remember?”

“Why didn’t you just try to leave the body?”

“Clarence! We’re on a time limit here! This sidewalk isn’t going to last forever!”

Why didn’t she think of that?

He tossed the container into her lap. “These are yours.” He stopped reaching for a second. “You said you were still taking them.”

Demon. Lying was part of the repertoire. “How long have you known me?” Meg demanded.

No harm done. Those pills had been missing for weeks with no. . .lasting side effects.

“Got it. I think.”

He sat up, holding a small grey bag in his hand. He pulled a lighter out of his jeans pocket and pulled the ashtray forward.

“Don’t set my car on fire,” Meg blurted out, she let go of the wheel and gave up on controlling the car.

He hesitated a moment. “Yes. I’m sure the real owners feel the same way.”

Meg wondered if she could slam his side of the car into that oncoming mailbox.

She looked away from the mailbox to see him struggling with the lighter.

“What the Hell, Clarence?” Meg snapped. “Deano can light that thing on the first try.”

“Please shut up, Meg.”

Well, since he said ‘please’. . .

The hexbag went up in flames and the car slowed down to a stop.

At least they’d managed not to hit anyone. It was amazing how fast people could suddenly move when a car was barreling down the sidewalk at them. Those canes hadn’t been required as those two old ladies had hurled themselves into the street.

Meg threw the car into reverse to get away from the mailbox and then punched it into drive, steering them back onto the road.

“What are you doing?” Castiel asked.

“We need to get away before the cops arrive,” she answered. “Don’t turn around!”

He paused mid-turn and turned back to face the front.

“Beyond that?”

Meg glanced at him and he raised an eyebrow at her.

“We’re going to stop Paige before she hurts someone else.”

He looked skeptical, but she didn’t think, “I’m going to punch the heinous skank in the face” was the best way to convince him to let her keep driving.

Well, maybe it would. He’d been trapped inside Christine here too.

“How do you know where she is?” he demanded, reaching out to catch onto the dashboard as she swerved.

“I looked at her personnel file, remember? And she has to have a certain place to perform the spell or it won’t work right.”

“Ah.”

She turned onto a side street and slammed on the brakes.

“Third floor. 3-A,” meg said, climbing out of the car.

“What exactly is the plan?” Castiel asked as he trailed along after her.

“What?” Meg caught onto the door -- which needed a card to get in -- as someone was coming out.

“A plan?” Castiel said as he pulled the door shut behind him. “All we’ve got is the knife. And we’re not using that on a human girl.”

Meg shrugged as she took the stairs two at a time. “I was just going to improvise.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m going to punch her in the face.”

They hit the third floor landing and she made her way steadily to the other end. Wouldn’t you think the alphabet would begin at the staircase?

“Should we knock?”

He hesitated a moment. “I think once that hexbag burst into flames we lost the element of surprise.”

True.

She moved forward to push on the door. When it didn’t budge, she pulled back to kick it in.

“Stop.” He caught onto her wrist. “You’ll break your -- err -- the girl’s foot.”

Meg looked down at her bare feet. Oh, right. She took a step back. “Okay, you do it.”

He stepped back next to her and frowned.

“Now what?”

“It always looks easier when Dean does it.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “On three. Ready?”

“Not really.”

“One. . .two. . Three. . .Go.”

He kicked on “three” and she kicked on “go”, so it took them a moment to line up their kicks well enough to get the door open.

Paige jumped up and took several steps back from the smoking mess that had probably been her spell.

Her eyes widened after a moment when she seemed to realise that Meg seriously meant to hurt her.

“The next time you hex someone,” Meg said as the girl dropped to the floor to protect her vital organs from the onslaught. “Make sure the person doesn’t know anything about witchcraft.”

She was vaguely aware of the fact that the spell seemed to be stirring up more smoke.

“Meg.”

“Just a minute, Clarence. I’m not done.”

“MEG!”

She spun around to face him.

“What?! OH.”

The bartender was standing behind Castiel. His eyes were black.

Oh, HELL. How had they missed THAT?

She heard Paige behind her, whimper softly. Meg glanced briefly over her shoulder at the girl. She was staring in horror at the man in front of her.

Of course. “You didn’t realize you were selling your soul to a demon to get your little spells performed, did you?”

The girl looked at her and opened her mouth.

And maybe she was going to say something, Meg didn’t know because suddenly the bartender -- err, the demon riding the bartender -- spoke.

“I’ve hit the jackpot,” he said, his voice slurring in a bizarre combination of the bartender’s creole and what sounded like some form of Spanish lilt. “I thought I was just taking on a pair of hunters. I had no idea I was getting two of both sides of the war’s hitlist.” He grinned. “Tell me, where are the Winchesters?”

Meg rolled her eyes and glanced quickly at Castiel, who had something in his hand -- something silver and -- oh, the knife.

Again the demon smiled. “And to think it was Ruby we always dubbed a whore.”

Meg was more insulted about being compared to Ruby than she was being called a whore.

He turned quickly, caught Clarence’s hand firmly in his and then -- did something. Meg couldn’t tell what, but it must have been some bad ass kick in the nads hoodoo because the knife clattered and slid across the ground and Castiel sank to the floor like a ton of bricks.

Things moved pretty fast after that.

Meg snatched up the knife Castiel had dropped and swung hard with her other fist at the demon’s head. He ducked and caught her arm, pulling it around behind her. Meg swore and moved to step back. She opened her mouth and suddenly the bartender swore and Meg was released.

She fell to the ground and turned to see Paige fly across the room and slam into the wall hard. The demon turned back to her.

Castiel was on his feet again, swaying slightly but standing.

He picked up a golf club that was by the wall he was leaning against and swung, smacking the demon hard in the face.

The demon swore and turned to look at Castiel.

Meg didn’t know what it was she meant to do, all she could think was that Clarence wasn’t one hundred percent at that exact moment and the demon had already flung him around like a rag doll once.

Meg ran forward as fast as she could and jammed the knife hard up under the demon’s ribs.

She couldn’t hear the scream or the swear because she flew backwards and slammed hard against the wall.

The last thing she remembered seeing before she blacked out was Clarence collapsing onto the ground and the demon’s empty meat suit doing the same.

She didn’t know how much time passed, but when she did come to, it took her a moment to register what the hell was going on. She could hear Reggie swearing and then someone was shaking her.

“Nancy! Wake up!”

Meg sat straight up before she could even register what was happening. Reggie was kneeling next to her, Paige standing off to the side, hugging herself.

“Calm down. You hit your head,” Reggie said. “I think maybe S--your -- boyfriend? Did too.”

Meg looked over her shoulder at Clarence, who wasn’t moving.

Fuck.

Fuck.

FUCK.

Meg limped over to Castiel and knelt down next to him. She could feel a pulse barely.

She turned to Reggie. “Did you call an ambulance?”

Reggie nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

“Cancel it. They can’t help.”

Meg reached out and shook Castiel once, hard. “Damn it, Clarence. Wake up.”

Castiel didn’t move.

Shit.

There was only one person she knew who knew any way to deal with an unconscious angel other than kill it.

And she would rather gouge her own eyes out than admit to him she needed his help.

Sam, however, she could deal with.

Meg grabbed her phone and sent a quick text message.

And after about three minutes, she got an ‘o.k. R u o.k.?’ in response.

She’d responded back ‘Y’ and that was it.

She then proceeded to wait three hours without hearing anything from either brother. Which was kind of a relief because she’d expected a very angry phone call from Deano. Or at least a grumpy one from Sam. But there was nothing from either of them and maybe it was because they weren’t terribly far away. But either way. She wished one of them would tell her what the hell she was supposed to do.

“I still don’t understand,” Reggie said, glancing at the unconscious figure on the bed and snapping Meg out of her internal ranting at the brothers.

It had taken all three of them to move him. And Meg really hoped that wasn’t a mistake. He’d just looked really freakin uncomfortable laying hunched over on the floor.

Meg sighed again and tossed back the shot Paige handed her.

“He’s not entirely human. Or. He wasn’t entirely human. He is now. I’m fairly certain his DNA is a wreck and so is his body.” She paused. “He’s got this -- friend. He’ll know what to do.”

She didn’t want to get into a discussion about angels and demons and the Apocalypse and what an angel and a demon were doing traveling together.

Meg stood up and sighed. “I need some air. If he wakes up, yell out the window.”

She stood leaning against the wall for maybe a minute when she heard, “They’re on their way, love.”

Meg turned quickly to look at the intruder.

“Crowley, what are you doing here?”

Crowley smiled at her and handed a bottle of whiskey out to her. “One hears things.” He paused. “I thought maybe you could use the company.”

Meg took the bottle from him and took a pull on the bottle.

She made a face and shrugged. “I’m fine, Crowley.”

A corner of his mouth quirked up. “Right. Of course you are. That’s why you’re here and not packed and on a plane somewhere.” He paused. “Not that you could go anyway.”

Meg frowned at him as he took the bottle from her. “I’m going. As soon as the Brothers Grimm get here, I’m gone.”

Crowley smiled. “Oh, love. This is me you’re talking to. If you’d wanted to leave, you would have done a long time ago.”

Meg took the bottle from him and took several gulps from it. She was not drunk enough for this shit.

And if it were anyone other than Crowley, she would have kicked him in the nuts and then knifed him for good measure.

But they’d been friends for as long as she could remember and she just didn’t feel like fighting anyone else right now.

She eyed him warily instead. “Begin at the beginning,” she said slowly. “Go on until you reach the end and then stop.”

Crowley eyed her for a moment. “I think you should know -- you’re rather being played.”

Meg scowled at him.

“You didn’t think that little angel on your shoulder was dragging you around of his own free will?” He laughed slightly. “There was a bargain, Meg. The only way he could stay here on Earth -- with the Winchesters. With --” He sighed. “His charge was to keep an eye on you.”

Meg’s head whipped to look at him so quickly she almost got whiplash. “What are you talking about? How do you know that?”

Oh. How stupid was she?

“King of the Crossroads, love.” Crowley smiled somewhat sadly. He paused. “I wanted to tell you before but I didn’t think you needed the added grief.”

He paused again at the sound of a familiar engine came down the road.

“But I thought you should be prepared. Before your angel’s human plaything blurts it out to you and you’re unprepared.”

He eyed her. “Because he will.”

Meg opened her mouth when Crowley disappeared, the Winchesters pulled up and she heard Reggie’s voice from the window.

“Nancy! He’s awake!”

Mother fuck.

Things sort of went downhill after that night. And Meg could have killed Crowley for putting her in that situation. She could have lived her entire existence never knowing that she’d been part of Clarence’s bargain to stay on Earth.

And here she’d been blaming it on the Winchesters.

She didn’t know why it bothered her. What was the difference in his being ordered to keep her close and his doing so because he wanted to.

Except there was a difference and she hated him for it.

Meg realized she’d been using his willingness to have her around as part of her excuse for not leaving. So long as he was okay with it, then she could be okay with it.

And now she realized she wasn’t a “partner” or “companion” or even here of her own free-will.

She was basically a prisoner. She’d been claiming that he wouldn’t let her leave if she tried, but that hadn’t been. . .

She’d not meant literally.

Really. . .

It shouldn’t matter.

Except it did. And it was causing more trouble than it was worth, really.

She kept picking fights.

Not that she didn’t always pick fights with him, but it wasn’t just the normal. . .banter, is what she’d call it for lack of a better word.

These got nasty. This wasn’t just a difference of opinion or even the sarcasm filled conversations they usually had.

All of those things that they’d known but kept quiet due to their attempts at civility came out.

Awful and almost bordering on violent at moments.

It affected their ability to do the damned job and nearly got them killed when he turned and left her standing alone in a roadhouse surrounded by what turned out to be a family of vamps.

She’d wanted to return the favor, but all she managed was trying to punch him when she’d managed to escape by setting the damned roadhouse on fire and tracking him back to the hotel.

She’d walked into the hotel room on the outskirts of Denver and just swung as hard as she could.

He’d ducked and swung backwards so she missed him and caught her fist in his hand.

“Stop.”

She swore and tried to pull herself out of his grip.

Castiel turned slightly and pinned her arms at her sides. “Stop this,” he said, quietly. “What is wrong with you?”

Meg gasped slightly and doubled over to try to twist free. After a moment of struggling, she blurted out, “Clarence, let me go!”

She didn’t know what it was, if it was her tone of voice or what, but something made him turn loose of her.

Which made her slide to the floor because she wasn’t expecting him to just release her like that.

She slid around to where she was sitting between the door to the bathroom and the nightstand by the bed and just stayed put.

“Did we have a fight, while I was unconscious?” he said, after a moment. “I thought we agreed that was going to stop happening.”

Meg frowned at him. “What?”

He returned her frown and slid down against the bed, a safe distance away, but still at eye level. “You’ve been more. . .antagonistic than usual since New Orleans. And you weren’t that way before I fell unconscious, so I assume something happened while I wasn’t around.”

It, of course, wouldn’t occur to him that she was upset because he’d been hurt.

A year ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to her either, but there the thought was and she wanted to hit him for it.

She squared her shoulders slightly. “I talked to Crowley, while you were. . .unconscious.”

He raised an eyebrow at this. “Ah. I see,” he said in that tired tone of voice that said he only vaguely understood, but didn’t think he wanted the explanation.

After a moment, he said, “What about?”

“What were you going to do when I tried to leave?”

He blinked at this. “Probably hitchhike.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, he was watching her with that expression she thought he’d only ever reserved for Dean. The cross-between amused and frustrated. Like he couldn’t decide whether to smile or frown.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” he said after a moment.

Meg tugged lightly on a piece of thread coming from the carpet and then looked back up at him. “I talked to Crowley while you were laid up.”

“Yes. You said that.”

“He told me about your little bargain you made to stay on Earth.”

He tipped his head to the side. “And what. . .bargain was that?”

Something about the way he said it made her think this was a trap and she was about to walk right into it.

She sighed and kept talking.

“That the only way they would let you stay here on Earth with the Brothers Grimm was if you agreed to keep me under lock and key.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it just as quickly.

She ploughed on. “It was very. . .clever of you to pretend like I’d had a choice in the matter, by the way. I mean, I believed it for. . .almost a year now.” She tipped her head to the side and smiled. “I don’t think you were supposed to sleep with me, though. That’s probably a black mark on your record.”

Castiel closed his eyes and then opened them just as quickly. “All Crowley said was that I was given the option of looking after you or going back to Heaven?”

She nodded.

He rolled his shoulders as if they hurt. “Well, yes. He would, because that’s how much he would have heard. No one else was there when Gavreel was talking to me.” He sighed.

He slid his feet further across the floor until they were almost touching hers. Meg pulled her legs further back from his and he sighed.

“They wanted to pull me back to Heaven, leave Sam and Dean to clean up the world on their own,” he paused for a moment. “And they wanted to toss you back into the Pit.”

Well, of course they did. Never mind that she’d been one of the ones working to save this pitiful rock they were stranded on.

“Not Crowley,” he said after a moment. “Just you. And when I asked why they made the distinction, I was told that. . .you were too. . .erratic to leave to roam free, that your crimes were too extreme.”

Well. . .yeah.

“Your lot are a bunch of hypocritical assholes, you know that, right?”

“So everyone keeps telling me,” he replied and then waited a moment. “I said that it wasn’t fair that they punished you when you’d lost as much as any of us.”

“And then. . .what?”

She’d meant to have something pithy to say, but it had come out sort of pathetic and weak.

“I said that I would keep an eye on you.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “You’re not tethered, Meg. No one’s made you stay. I don’t need to be with you all the time. If you were up to something I would know. That was the. . .way it was explained to me.” He paused a moment again. “That I was to keep tabs on you and help the boys clean up the world as best as possible.”

“Then why not just let me wander off?” she said. “Then you could be keeping an eye on the Winchesters’ collective ass -- which needs more watching than mine does.”

He shrugged. “I’d gotten. . .used to having you around. After the. . .throw down in Lawrence. . .I shouldn’t have interfered then, but I did because.” He waited a moment. “We’d already lost Ellen and Jo. We’d nearly lost Bobby and Dean was hanging by a thread. I -- couldn’t lose you too.”

Oh.

Oh, Hell.

“I didn’t volunteer for the task of babysitting you, Meg.”

Dean’s words, she’d bet anything.

“I’d already made the decision long before it became something that needed to be done.” He paused. “I wasn’t going to abandon you to the world.”

“Even if that was what I wanted you to do in the first place,” she said, pleased the venom had returned to her words.

“But you didn’t,” he answered, sounding surprised. “In all this time you have never once tried to leave. And say what you want about not thinking you could,” he interrupted when she opened her mouth. “You never tried. Not once in the last year have you tried to leave. And you could have. Any number of times you could have gotten in the car and driven off. But you didn’t.”

She struggled for a moment. She was pretty sure, “I like to be with you,” would be too much ammunition.

“I’m a glutton for punishment,” she said after a moment of thought.

He raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t say anything. He reached out and took the hand she extended to him.

“Come on,” she said, using his grip to propel herself to a standing position and pulling him up to join her.

“We need to get a better knife. Maybe a sword. . .or an axe. Medieval, but it’ll work better than those pathetic knives we’ve been using.”

“I don’t understand --”

Meg tipped her head to the side and smiled at him. She worried slightly that it might be one of the only genuine smiles she’d had in a long time.

“The vamps, Clarence. The job? It’s not over.”

He nodded once, carefully.

“Of course.” He waited a moment, looking her over as if checking for any signs she was going to do something violent or insane.

She opened her mouth and the words came out in a rush before she could stop them.

“Thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow at this, waited a moment, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn’t, he simply said,

“You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was an assignment for a fic exchange. The fic was tailored to the recipient's requests. It just happened that a lot of our thoughts and theories about this pairing happened to be alike.


End file.
